•204 



NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



[Sept. 15. 1855. 



legend as above ; date " 1792 ;" reverse, eagle with shield, 

 olive and arrows ; above, " cent." Edges of all the same. 

 These are all of copper, and were said to have been pat- 

 terns for an intended coinage, but not approved.] 



"TBTE life of DAVID. 



Who is the author of that well-knt>wn pro- 

 duction, The Life of David ; the Man after Ood's 

 own Heart, 18mo., London, 1761 ? 



In a note prefixed to Saul, Drame, Traduit de 

 TAnglais de M. Hut, 1763, Voltaire gives the 

 following information : 



" M. Huet, membre du parlement d'Angleterre, ^tait 

 petit-neveu deM. Huet, ^vcque d'Avranches. Les Anglais, 

 au lieu de Huet avee un e ouvert, prononcent Hut. Ce 

 fut lui qui, en 1728, composa le petit livre tres-curieux. 

 The Man after the Heart of God, L'homme selon le cceur 

 de Dieu. Indigne d'avoir entendu un predicateur com- 

 parer il David le roi George 11., qui n'avait ni assassin^ 

 personne, ni fait briiler ses prisonniers fran^ais dans les 

 fours a briques, il fit une justice eclatante de ce roitelet 

 juif." 



This, by the way, may be the " old Huet " 

 spoken of by Brydone, and alluded to in " N. & 

 Q." (Vol. xi., p. 456.). I may also add that Saul 

 was retranslated into English as from Voltaire, by 

 " Oliver Martext, of Arden," and published in 

 1820 by Carlile, who has somewhat dishonestly 

 suppressed the explanatory " avis " of the French 

 writer : but to return to The Life of David. 

 Voltaire again (Diet. Phil., sub voce " David ") 

 attributes this performance to " M. Hut," but 

 now correctly gives 1761 as the date of pub- 

 lication. He adds : 



"Personne ne murmura en Angleterre centre I'auteur; 

 son livre fut reimprime avec I'approbation publique." 



My own impression was that the book was the 

 production of the well-known and cruelly-treated 

 Peter Annet. It is so attributed in the title-page 

 of a reprint by Consius, a year or two back, and 

 also in the index to the Encyc. Britannica, though 

 in the article to which it refers (" Life of S. 

 Chandler ") the name of Annet is not made use 

 of. AVatt and Lowndes afford no information on 

 the subject. Watkins (Biog. Diet.) includes it 

 among Annet's productions*; but in some inter- 

 esting letters in the Gent. Mug. on the subject 

 of Annet and his persecutions, no mention of the 

 work occurs in connexion with him. 



Finally, the following extract from the cata- 

 logue of an intelligent bibliopole, Mr. J. R. Smith, 

 ibr April 1852, throws additional doubt upon the 

 authorship : 



"NooRTHOUCK. — The original autograph manuscript 

 of the life of John Noorthouck, author of the History of 

 the Man after God's own Heart, History of London, &c., 

 4to., 1/. Is. A very interesting piece of autobiography ; 



[* So also does Gorton in his Bioq. Diet.'] 

 No. 307.] 



it contains many curious literarj' anecdotes of the last 

 centurj', and deserves to be printed. With it will be 

 given a volume of pamphlets in reply to the History of 

 the Man after God's own Heart, by Chandler, Patten, 

 Porteus, and Cleaver, with numerous .MS. marginal 

 notes by jSfoorthouck." 



Not having this manuscript before me, I know 

 nothing of the nature of the evidence it contains, 

 but should imagine it to be important and con- 

 clusive. But where did Voltaire get his informa- 

 tion from ? What else is known of " M. Hut," 

 and does Saul exist in English as written by him? 

 How did Annet get upon the title-page of the 

 modern reprint ? In short, which bf the triad is 

 the actual author ? William Bates. 



Birmingham. 



Quotations wanted. — Wh6 are the authors of 

 the following : 



" Qui jacet in terra, non habet unde cadat." 

 " Vox audita perit, litera scripta manet." * 

 " Fiat justitia, Tuat ccelum." 



" Indocti discunt, et ament meminisse periti." 



(This is the motto to Laharpe's Cours de Litterature.') 



" Pie equali'd all hvit Shakspeare here below." 



" Death hath a thousand ways to let out life." 



" Forgiveness to the injured does belong, 

 But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong." 



J. Sx. 

 Philadelphia. 



Tree cast on the French Coast. — The Annals 

 of St. Berlin's, written by Prudentius, bishop of 

 Troyes, tell us that in the year 858, — 



■" In territorio . . . [blank] . . . mare quandam arborera 

 radicitus evulsam et Gallicanis provinciis ante ignotam 

 ejecit, (;arentem foliis, sed loco frondium habentem ramus- 

 culos similitudine herbai partim lata; et longioris, loco 

 vero foliorum qusedam triangula specie, colore autem un- 

 guium humanorum vel ossium piscium, quae in eis tenuia 

 sunt ; et hasc ita summitati earundem herbarum in- 

 hjErentia, ac si extrinsecus adposita viderentur, more 

 eorum qui ex'diversis metallis in ornamentis cingulorum 

 vel hominum vel equestrium falerarum extrinsecus adfigi 

 solent." — Pertz, Monum. Germ. Histor. Scriptores, i. 451. 



Can this be identified with any known American 

 or other tree ? J. C. R. 



French Translation of the Agricola of Tacitus. 

 — At a sale of books in London, some years ago, 

 a number were disposed of which had belonged to 

 a member of the Buonaparte family — to the pre- 

 sent Emperor of the French, it was believed at 

 the time. Among these were some copies of a 

 translation into French of the Life of Agricola by 

 Tacitus, printed at Florence for private distribu- 

 tion in 1829. The translator, whose initials are 



[* See "N. & Q.," Vol. y., pp. 200. 237. 261,] 



